


Soft Play

by Mystradigans



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/F, Jawn, John's reaction to Mystrade is literally the exact same as mine, Kidlock, M/M, Reichenbach Feels, but it's a slide..., soft play area
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-14
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-02-13 03:23:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2135217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mystradigans/pseuds/Mystradigans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and his Jawn have an adventure at the soft play area.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soft Play

**Author's Note:**

> This one's by Emily. If you hadn't guessed by the fact that NOBODY DIES! Thanks, Nadia...

"Noo!" scowled Sherlock, glaring up at an eleven-year-old Harry Watson as she attempted to take her brother home from Playgroup. "He's MY Jawn and he's staying here with me!"

"Please, Harry" begged John. "Just five more minutes?"

"No" she groaned, throwing one hand into her short hair in agitation. "You said that yesterday, John, and you were gone half an hour! I wanna go home!" She began trying to pry the curly haired three-year-old away from her almost-five-year-old baby brother to no avail as Sherlock was clinging to his 'Jawn' for dear life. At that moment, Clara-Jackson-from-school walked in, crossed the room to sit at the table next to where Harry appeared to be trying to separate a pair of siamese twins and said "Hi Harriet".

"H-hi" she said hastily, then "Go on then John. But five minutes"

"Thanks Harry!" cheered John, and hugged her legs before running after Sherlock, who'd already sprinted off in the direction of the soft play area.

"COME ON JAWN!" he yelled, diving headfirst into the ball pit. John followed him in, giggling maniacally and soon they were throwing balls at each other like their lives depended on it. After a few minutes of this, Sherlock suddenly grabbed John's hand, shrieking "THIS WAY, JAWN! QUICK!"

Sherlock knew the layout of the play area by heart, and he dashed through flaps and over foam shapes like he was born to do it. John followed, trying to keep up, until Sherlock stopped abruptly next to a pillar on the second floor, gasped "We're here now!" and lay down on his back, breathing heavily. John sat beside his head and panted there for a few moments before catching his breath.

"Look, it's Sally!" Sherlock said, spotting the girl on the other side of a roller. "She's trying to do the Farmyard puzzle!"

"Wow!" replied John appreciativly. "That one's really hard!" Sherlock was suddenly up on his feet and pushing himself over the roller. "Come on, Jawn"

John hurried to obey him, climbing over to join Sherlock. The pair walked over to Sally and peered over her shoulder.

"Wrong!" declared Sherlock.

"Huh- oh, it's you, freak" she said, and rolled her eyes.

"You're wrong" Sherlock repeated. "That piece doesn't go there, it goes with that piece, you see it makes a sheep"

"Amazing!" beamed John and Sherlock smiled proudly.

"Whatever, freak" Sally muttered.

"Look, this bit's wrong too" Sherlock continued, pointing at the only other jigsaw pieces she had managed to connect. "It doesn't quite fit here-" he gestured to where the tab had been bent from her forcing it into the hole. "And it doesn't make sense for the picture. Maybe I should just do the puzzle myself- you're a bit out of your depth here"

"He's right you know" chimed John. "You should let Sherlock have a turn"

"Fine" Sally spat with a pout. "See if you can solve it!"

Sherlock knelt in front of the puzzle, humming to himself as he arranged the pieces to look like the farm animals they were supposed to depict and not the mangled mess of body parts Sally had made.

"That's brilliant!" John admired. "Look Sally, he's fixed it for you!"

"Freak" grunted Sally and, pouting, she stomped off into the ball pit.

"John?" a voice asked from behind them.

"Oh, hi Mary" said John.

Mary tottered over, her doll in one arm and smiled widely. "Hi!"

"This is Sherlock" John told her, pointing at Sherlock. "Sherlock, this is Mary. She's in my class at school"

Mary smiled sweetly at Sherlock before taking John's hand. At once, Sherlock snatched John's hand away from her, holding it himself.

"John doesn't want girl germs" he scooped, before tugging on John's hand and pulling him away. John laughed when they got up to the next floor.

"Phew, we escaped" he said. "I don't have girl germs now, do I Sherlock?"

"No, you've only got my germs now" Sherlock informed him. John decided that the three-year-old must be right because he had a brother in sixth form so he knew about these things. 

"Good. Girl germs are icky" he smirked and Sherlock nodded in agreement.

"Let's climb" he told John. He latched his fingers onto the meshy wall, pulling himself up like a monkey. John climbed after him quickly.

"Boys!" said Greg Lestrade, who worked at the play area at the weekend. "You know you're not supposed to climb the wall"

"Sorry Greg!" John called, jumping straight off and landing on the soft floor.

Sherlock sighed dramatically and slid off the wall. "You're terrible at law enforcement, Lestrade. Don't ever become a policeman"

"Don't be a brat" Lestrade sighed. "Go on now"

"THANKS GREG!!" John hollered over his shoulder as he and Sherlock ran upstairs. "Sherlock, where are we going?"

"Find Molly" he explained. "She promised she'd find all the blocks and sort them by colour for me"

They found Molly on the third highest step up from the second level, sitting cross-legged before an array of wooden building blocks. Sherlock wasted no time in grabbing the orange pile and counting the blocks, brow furrowed in concentration.

"One.. Two.. Three.. Four.. Five" he said, then frowned. "Only five? There's six of all the other colours"

"Mhm" said Molly. "Would you like to stay and play something? We could-"

"Sorry Molly, gotta run" he said, grabbing John's hand. "C'mon Jawn"

"What is it Sherlock?" asked John once they'd left Molly behind. Sherlock glanced around; the only other person there was two-year-old Anderson, who was rocking back and forth cradling his toy dinosaur.

"Well, you know all the things that have gone missing lately?"

John nodded. Someone at Playgroup had been taking home random toys from the soft play area: jigsaw pieces, dressing up clothes, Duplo and balls from the ball pit. There had been a letter sent home about it and everything.

"All of these things have been orange, Jawn!"

John gasped. "Really? Why?"

"Well that's the problem. I don't know!"

John thought. "Maybe they just really like orange?"

Sherlock gasped. "That's genius, Jawn! If they like orange that much, they'll probably be wearing an orange t-shirt! All we have to do is find everyone who's wearing an orange shirt and search their pockets for the stolen block!"

"Awesome!" John grinned. "We can see everything from the lookout deck!"

"Good idea!" Sherlock yelled and took off, John close at his heels.

The lookout deck was the bit of space next to the big, plastic window on the top floor. Both boys hastened to press their faces against the window.

"Remember, we're looking for something orange" Sherlock said.

"Uhm, I see Mycroft" offered John. "What's he doing here? You don't go home 'til five"

Sure enough, Sherlock's older brother was doing his homework at a table, dressed in his casual clothing: dark trousers, a shirt and tie and a green sleeveless jumper.

"Oh, he's probably come to stare at Lestrade" Sherlock said with a disgusted expression.

"Huh, why would he do that?"

"My brother has somehow decided that Lestrade's attractive and now I think he wants to marry him" Sherlock said dismissively.

"WHAT?" asked John. "I don't understand.. How?.. Why?.."

"Believe me, I'm in complete agreement" Sherlock mused.

"B-but have they ever even spoken? Why would that even be a thing?" demanded John, shaking his head in distress.

"I really have no idea" Sherlock said with a smirk.

"I'm sorry, I just can't picture Mycroft actually liking someone" John shuddered.

"Disturbing isn't it?"

"It wouldn't work at all. Although actually..." John said thoughtfully. "They are about the same age, aren't they? And it would be nice for Mycroft to have someone.. and Greg told me he loves boys and girls"

"Please tell me you're kidding, Jawn" Sherlock groaned.

John thought about it. "No, now I think about it, Mycroft and Greg would be totally cute together!"

"Gross!" Sherlock insisted. "Totally hideous together Jawn, totally horrible together! Not CUTE!"

"Sorry" John said, shrugging. "But it's the truth. They'd be a great couple"

Sherlock mimed throwing up, wrinkling his nose to give it extra panache. "No, Jawn. But if you want, we can go find Lestrade and ask him if he likes my brother, so you can see that he finds it as horrific as I do"

"Okay" grinned John. "But don't be too upset when he likes Mycroft back!"

"We can take the slide" Sherlock said, choosing to ignore John.

The boys dashed off in the direction of the slide, each giggling to themselves as they planned out what they would do when they were proved right about Mycroft and Greg. Sherlock screeched to a stop suddenly in front of John, and John froze behind him as he saw a 7-year-old Jim Moriarty blocking the way.

And he was wearing an orange t-shirt.

 

"Sherlock" leered Jim, smiling widely. "I've been waiting for you! I didn't think it would take you this long to find me once you started investigating the missing orangey-things!"

"Hey!" John yelled, stepping in front of Sherlock. "Aren't you too old to be in this play area? The sign says 6 years and under!"

"Oops" Moriarty grinned. "But you see, I just wanted to see Sherlock. I'm quite curious as to whether or not he's as smart as they say he is. In fact, you could almost say I'm obsessed.."

He pulled up his sleeve and showed Sherlock and John his forearm, which had the words "Sherrlok Homes" written four times in red felt pen.

"That's sick" John snarled. "What do you want with Sherlock?"

"I want to know how he did it" Jim said with a glare. "Apparently you solved the Farmyard Puzzle, and the one with the Tweenie Clock. I've tried- I can't do those ones"

"He did, I saw him" interjected John.

"Ah, yes" said Jim. "But how do you know he hadn't seen the box? Think of it. He sneaks a peek at the box so he knows what the picture looks like. From there, it's child's play to solve the jigsaw and make everyone think he's a genius"

"Sherlock would never do that!" John cried.

"He's right, I didn't see the boxes, I swear on Mycroft's life" snapped Sherlock.

"Is that so?" asked Jim in surprise. "Will the other children agree, do you think?"

Sherlock thought for a moment. Everyone else was just waiting for an explanation as to how he solved the puzzles. If Jim told them he'd cheated, they'd certainly believe him.

"What do you want?" growled Sherlock.

Jim smiled, his eyes widening. "I want you to jump off the side of the slide"

"B-but you'll hurt yourself" John protested. "It's probably 6 meters high! Sarah fell off once and she got a bruise all down her back!"

"Go on then Sherlock" Moriarty teased. "Or are you too scared?"

"I'm not scared" Sherlock scoffed, shoving his hand into his curls indignantly. "But there's no way I'm jumping off the slide"

"Yeah, you are" said Jim. "Or I'll push John off it"

Sherlock bit his lip and took a deep breath. "Fine, I'll do it!"

"What, no!" John yelped. "Don't Sherlock, I'm not worth it!"

"Shut up, Jawn" Sherlock said, steeling his nerves. "Come on then, Jim. I should ask, how do you know Lestrade or someone else who works here won't see you?"

"My friend Sebby" Jim smiled. "Is at this moment having a fist fight with another boy at the other end of the centre. All the adults are going to be rather too busy over there to pay attention to me"

"Very clever" remarked Sherlock. "Well, you've got me. I'll be jumping now, I suppose"

"Fantastic" Jim grinned. He grabbed John's wrist and dragged him over to the slide. Sherlock stood right on the edge and began to sway backwards and forewords. John began to cry- he was scared- and Moriarty stood looking satisfied.

"Go on then, Sherly" smirked Jim.

Sherlock stood on his toes, closed his eyes,-

-and screamed "MYCROFT!!!!!!!" at the top of his voice.

Mycroft leapt up at his brother's shout and saw Sherlock on the edge, and John crying with Jim squeezing his wrist. He began sprinting- Mycroft, sprinting!- towards them before Jim knew what was happening. Jim snarled and reached out to push Sherlock off anyway, letting go of John and just as Jim was about to touch him, Sherlock jumped off the side.

Mycroft threw his arms out, catching Sherlock mid-flight and pulled him protectively to his chest. John, who had run as soon as Jim let go of him and was nearly at the bottom of the play area now, saw Sherlock wrapping his arms around his brother's neck and snuggling into him as Jim roared in anger.

The commotion alerted Lestrade, who hurried over and immediately began yelling at Jim for going into the kid's area again, before seeing Mycroft standing behind him with his arms full of three-year-old.

"Greg!" John said as soon as he got over there. "Jim was the one who stole all the stuff that's gone missing lately"

Greg glanced at Jim. "Is that true?"

"No" Jim sulked. "It was Sherlock!"

"Jim, Sherlock is three years old, how could he have stolen anything?" asked Greg in annoyance.

"He's got the block in his pocket" Sherlock pointed out. "Look!"

Sure enough, the orange block in Jim's jean pocket gave him away as the culprit and Jim's Dad was informed that he'd been stealing.

Sherlock sighed. "Lestrade, this is my brother Mycroft, you don't know him yet. You should probably introduce yourself"

Greg glanced at Mycroft with a hint of a blush and held out his hand. "Greg, hi"

Mycroft shifted Sherlock into one arm so he could shake Greg's hand, looking like he was about to faint. John giggled and Sherlock muttered "Oh, great, here we go." Then John felt a tap on his shoulder a tap on his shoulder and looked up to see his sister.

"John, you've been ages. Come on, it's time to go"

"Harry!" John moaned. "Do we have to?"

"Don't go, Jawn!" pleaded Sherlock, wiggling out of Mycroft's arms. Mycroft was too dazed to notice; Greg was talking to him about something or other and he didn't seem to have eyes for anyone else.

"Oh come on, Harry, let them have a bit longer" Clara reasoned. "My sister's staying here, I don't wanna wait on my own"

Harry sighed. "Go on then" she told the boys, who cheered and ran off again. "Five more minutes..."


End file.
